As you all know I have been working on the character rigging and animation and as requested I am just updating you all on my progress.
To begin with I have learnt something this week... Animation is not easy.
This is the rigged aunt character that Katie made, each join is named accordingly so its fairly easy to work with. All of the major joints have selectors and controllers attached to them, so I can work with them through the mesh.
I did a bit of a test to see how the rig works, just a basic pose, I know she wont be getting into a fist fight but I thought it was a nice, easy generic pose to play with.
I created what is known as IK handles, which can be used to bend multiple joints as a whole. As you can see in the image the knee is bending as I move the ankle towards the hip. Another is connected to the toes for easier manipulation.
A problem I have been facing is the skin weights. Skin weights basically control what vertices move with certain joints. As you can see the mesh has stretched and deformed quite a bit with the movement of the shoulder.
I will be moving on to work on the walk cycle when I can but this week is already a bit hectic as it is, I'm doing some overtime at work, its my birthday on Friday and I will be working on my dissertation throughout the week.
If you want to see anything else, give me a shout and I'll see what I can do :)
Looks alright, don't worry too much about the shoulder, I don't think she's doing much beyond walking and opening doors/going up stairs. No arm flails necessary :)
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